Barn Key

The extra key is the one that does not match the stamped set.

I keep it on the ring with the office, the dock, the quiet room, and the padlock on the Zamboni door Bo pretends he does not lose. The extra is brass. Older. No tag. It turns the Harbor Barn's west pedestrian door when the electronic lock is in a mood, which is every February and most of March. I do not romanticize a key. I invoice buildings. A key is how a building lets you in so you can lose money in it on purpose.

My name is Pia Holberg. I am thirty-three. Assistant GM. Hockey ops and the lease. My uncle sold his share last year and went to a warmer zip code with a boat he talks about in emails I do not open. I stayed. Staying is not loyalty. Staying is a job that still has a door that needs a person who can read a number.

The books are on my desk at 7:40. Not the pretty books. The ones with ice hours and the city invoice and the plant that eats electricity like a second roster. I have three columns open. Club revenue. Building cost. The offer Ellis Tovey sent at 6:12 that is not an offer so much as a smile with a letterhead.

Tovey Home. Furniture. Rooms people want to stay in. He has a chain and a warmer market and a tax story that needs a losing hockey club attached to a teardown. He has already been in my lobby. He smiled at a youth bag. He asked if a slot was a story. I told him I invoice youth. He smiled anyway.

The phone rings at 7:51. I know the number. I let it go twice because I am in the middle of a line that does not work and I will not let a furniture man interrupt a failure I have not finished naming. I pick up on the third.

"Holberg."

"Pia." He says my name like we share a showroom. "I wanted to walk the number with you before I fly. I'm in at two tomorrow. I can do the lobby again. I can do a booth. I can do whatever room you use to pretend a warehouse is a franchise."

"The booth is for hockey," I say. "The lobby is for people who have an appointment. You have one. Don't arrive early and smile at a bag."

He laughs. The laugh is a teardown. "I'm not here to steal a lesson. I'm here because the lease is ugly and the city is tired and your uncle already did the smart thing. You stayed. That's admirable. Admirable is expensive. I can make the expensive part stop. You keep a job in a warmer market if you want one. Ops. Real ice. Not a hobby with a pike on it."

"The pike is a logo. The hobby pays a plant bill. Your number assumes the Barn comes down."

"My number assumes the Barn is a warehouse on a harbor that could be something people sit on. You know that. You've run it. I can hear you running it right now. Does it work."

I look at the three columns. Club revenue does not cover the plant if the city stops pretending the youth line is civic. Building cost does not cover itself if Tovey is right about the roof. His offer covers a sale and a teardown and a tax year for a furniture chain. It does not cover six girls at 5:00 or a roster that still has to dress in a room that smells like lemon when Bo is angry.

"It doesn't work," I say. I do not decorate it. "That's not the same as I sell it to you."

"Tomorrow," he says. "Bring the extra key. I want to see the door you use when the electronic one sulks. That's the door a buyer cares about."

He hangs up like a man who thinks a smile traveled. I put the phone down. I do not write a feeling. I write Tovey 2:00. lobby. do not give him the extra. numbers still don't work. I copy the three columns to a sheet I will print because Ruthie does not read a screen on a dock.

I take the ring. I walk the building the way I walk it when a buyer is in the air and I need to know what I am about to lose.

The lot is dirty ice. A plow that has given up on the last row. The diner sign across the street is still a concussion other people investigate. I do not investigate diners. I count spaces. Twenty-eight if no one parks like a tourist. The west door is the extra's door. I put the brass in and I turn it. It turns. The rubber inside is wet from a cut Bo already did. The plant is a noise I invoice by the kilowatt. I call it a line on a bill the city is going to ask me about in a room with a microphone.

I walk the ice from the glass, not the sheet. I am not a person who goes on ice in street shoes to feel a metaphor. The far sheet has KADE 5:00–6:00 still on the tape. Anja invoiced us last month and she will invoice us again if a last change eats her edge. The near sheet has optional at 9:00. Cal's marker is already in the box upstairs. I can see the ghost of last night's dots. I do not read dots. I read hours.

The booth is a plywood shelf with a headset that crackles and a heater that works on the third try. I sit in it because Tovey said booth and I need to know if a furniture man can stand in here for ten minutes without calling it a hobby. He can. He will. He will smile at the headset and say this could be a tasting room. I write booth: plywood, crackle, third-try heat. not a tasting room. I leave the heater off. I am not paying the third try for a man who is not here yet.

Down in the lobby the glass shows the lot and a slice of harbor that is frozen in a way that is not pretty. I put the printed columns on the counter. I run the numbers again with a pencil because a pencil cannot auto-sum a hope.

Ice rental: youth, public, the adult beer thing I tolerate because it pays a Thursday. Club ticket: a number that looks like a town and behaves like a leak. Sponsorship: the diner, a lift company, a clinic that already has too much of our medical. City contribution: a sentence that expires if a council person wants a warmer story. Plant. Insurance. The safety line Fran Bell already sniffed last year and will sniff again if I copy her. Lease payment. The ugly part. The part that does not work even when I am generous about April.

I add it. I subtract it. I do the version where we cut public and keep youth. I do the version where we cut youth and I have to tell Anja the hour is a story, which I will not do because I already told Tovey I invoice youth and I do not lie to a buyer and a coach on the same week. I do the version where Tovey's number is real and the Barn is a lot of chairs. That version works on paper. That version is a teardown.

The extra key sits on the counter next to the pencil. Brass. No tag. I pick it up. I put it back on the ring. I do not leave extra keys on counters for furniture men to photograph.

Bo comes through with a bottle of lemon and a nod. He looks at the printout. He does not ask. He sprays the glass like the glass is a player who talked. He nods at the ring.

"West door sticks after two," he says.

"I know. That's why the extra exists."

He nods again. He goes toward the tunnel. Bo Peck sees everything and says the one sentence that is a door. I file it. I do not thank him.

Ruthie texts a period and then, because a period is not enough when a buyer is flying, dock. now.

I take the printout. I take the ring. I go to the loading dock. She is there with the cigarette she has not lit. Fifty. GM. A face that is a wire when the wire is a sale. She does not do speeches. She looks at my columns.

"Does it work," she says.

"No."

"Does his work."

"If the Barn comes down."

She puts the unlit cigarette in her mouth and takes it out again. That is her whole conversation with tobacco. "He smiled at Kade's bag. He asked if a claim was a fire. He asked if a winger moving moved youth. You told him no. Tell him no in a booth tomorrow if you have to. Don't give him the extra. If he wants a door he can use the front like a person who has an appointment."

"I already told him not to come early."

"He will come early. Furniture comes early. That's how a showroom works." She looks at the lot. "Your uncle sent me a boat picture. I deleted it. You stayed. I am not going to make staying a hymn. I am going to ask you if you can stand in a city meeting with a number that doesn't work and still want the lease."

"I can stand in a city meeting. I cannot invent a number."

"Don't invent. Bring the ugly. Ugly is at least true." She looks at my face the way she looks at a roster that is about to lose a letter. "Ward is going to get hit again. June is going to sit him. I can feel it in the way he takes a gap. If the C moves, Tovey will call it instability. Have a sentence that is not a ceremony."

"I have a letter in a drawer," I say. "I have not dated it."

"Date it when June dates the sit. Not before. Before is a costume."

I go back through the west door because I am testing the extra the way I test a lock I am about to refuse to show. It turns. The rubber is still wet. The ice list is on the wall in the corridor. Owen Pell is standing in front of it with the A on a hoodie that is not a costume. He is thirty. Alternate. Quiet in a way that is not a performance. He does not look at me like I am a story. He looks at the list. He looks at the ring in my hand. He looks at the printout under my arm.

"Kade's still five," he says. "I told Cal. I'll tell him again if the marker gets hungry."

"Tell him. If Tovey asks if youth is flexible you will not answer him. You will send him to me."

He nods. He does not make a speech about a building. He notices the brass on the ring the way he notices a room: without announcing that he noticed. I have been looking at him since before I had a reason I would write down. Glances. Hallways. A man who wears a letter like a job. I do not put that on a column. Columns are for money.

"Two o'clock tomorrow," I say. "Buyer. Stay off the lobby unless you have a reason that is ice."

"I have ice at nine," he says. "That's a reason."

He goes toward the tunnel. I stand in the corridor with a ring and a printout and a number that does not work. I go back to the office. I put the columns in a folder that says LEASE and not MEN. I put Tovey's letterhead under it so I cannot pretend I do not have a smile in the building.

I run the numbers one more time at 9:05 because optional is starting and the plant is a noise I can hear through the glass. They still do not work. I write that down in complete sentences so I cannot later claim I was in a mood.

Harbor Barn cost exceeds club plus rental if the city contribution moves. Tovey Home offer assumes teardown. Youth is a lease line, not a story. Extra key stays on the ring. Buyer at 2:00 tomorrow. Do not give him a tour that includes a feeling.

I close the folder. I look at the harbor slice. I look at the lot. I look at the brass.

The phone does not ring again. Tovey already used his smile for the morning. I use the morning for a copy I will walk to Ruthie's door and a second copy I will not walk to Rhea Collett even though I can feel her in the stair already, sniffing a sale the way she sniffs a scrape.

I print two. I tape one to Ruthie's door because that is how this club files. I put the other in the folder. I take the ring. I go to the booth and I sit in the crackle for eight minutes with the heater off, because if I cannot stand a number that does not work in a plywood shelf I cannot stand it in a city meeting.

I can stand it. Standing it is not the same as solving it.

I leave the booth. I lock the west door from the inside so the extra has to be the way back in later. I put the brass away. I go to my desk. I open the drawer that has an undated letter and a C that is not Owen's yet. I do not date it. I close the drawer.

Tovey smiled on the phone. The books did not smile back. That is the only accurate sentence I have at 9:18, and I am not going to improve it for a furniture chain.